One Extraordinary Summer Afternoon
by drizzledrops
Summary: There are many worlds within the small planet Earth. Possibly the most common is the world of the humans on land, but second most known of is the world of merpeople in the seas. Few humans have been introduced to this world, but that number is about to get a little bigger. [includes DirkJake, JohnVris, PB&J, Davekat, EriFef, and maybe others as the story goes on]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello there, and thanks for looking at this fanfic! I'd just like to say that this is a group fic on AO3, and I [Drizzle_drops] am one of the three authors, along with Sapphire_sky and Serval. Since I'm the only one of us who uses this site, I've decided to post it here so you guys can read it. We pretty much have a pattern when posting chapters, so this one belongs to Sapphire_sky, chapter 2 belongs to me, and chapter 3 belongs to Serval. It just continues on like that, with chap. 4 belonging to Saph, and so on. ****Also, this is based on ikimaru's merstuck. So anyway, enjoy the story!**

**Chapter 1: == Be a Clueless Little Human**

You have now become Jake English, a "clueless little human." You have been recently informed that you will not be going anywhere over the summer. Instead, you will be staying at your everyday beach-house at 414 Battle Court. You really have no idea who the people that live on your street are, and you don't plan on finding out.

"Jake?"

"Yes, Jade? What is it?"

"Will you come to the beach with me? I wanna look around some before Jane gets here."

Jane is your and Jade's cousin, and she would rather spend the day baking than exploring. "Gadzooks! Dearest Janey's coming today, isn't she? Golly, I'd nearly forgotten! Onward and out then, Jade!"

Jade laughs and speeds out the door. You follow, but only after pocketing your trusty Swiss Army Knife. You'd never let it leave your sight. You catch up to your sister rather quickly, jogging at her side until you reach the sand. Jade, unlike yourself, leaps straight onto the sand, letting out a yowl of pain as the sand burns her bare feet. You laugh and slip off your sandals, handing them to her.

"Where to, Jake?" your younger sister asks, excitedly strapping your shoes to her smaller feet. You look around.

"Jade?"

"Yeah Jake?"

"Do you think Grandpa will mind if I borrow his jet ski?" You say, grinning at the tiny speck of an island in the distance.

**[TIMESKIP]**

The jet ski's just as fast as when you last used it. Jade holds onto you for dear life, screaming as the machine speeds at 45mph over the ocean's waves. A few times, you feel like you almost hit something, but the mysterious thing always moves out of the way just in time.

The island you head to is only a few miles off the shore, so it only takes about ten minutes to get there. You park your aquatic vehicle on some rotting old dock and quickly get off of it, pulling Jade off with you. "Woah," Jade gapes, eyes wide, "where are we?"

"An island, dear Jade. An island just waiting for us to explore its wonders!"

After mere minutes of looking around, you and Jade find a hole on the ground. It looks an awful lot like a slide to you. "Jake? Can I stay up here?"

"Of course, Jade! Just give me a holler if you need anything, alrighty?"

Jade grins and nods, sitting down while you look down the slide you mean tunnel. You sit down, waving goodbye to Jade and slide.

You laugh the entire way down, even managing to stick the landing. The cavern before you is huge. Huge enough so that you can hear the voices echoing off the walls. As quietly as you possibly can, you walk forward, looking around at the shining stalagmites. Of course, they would be prettier if you didn't have the fear of being randomly impaled. Being randomly impaled would definitely put a damper on the whole day.

You crouch behind a big rock, looking around it at a pool of glimmering water. There's a splash, and you see something blue and something pink, and then it's gone. You stand up, looking into the water. It's way deeper than you would have thought, and it probably leads into the ocean. You sit there for a while, just staring into the blue depths of the pool.

**== Be Jade**

You are now Jade, and you heard a twig snap (though it was probably you), so you're freaking out. You run until you see a tunnel leading into the side of a mountain. Ooh! It looks fun!

**== Discover**

You are now Jake English, and GADZOOKS WHAT IS THAT OVER THERE. It seems you have found a piece of paper, and waterproof paper at that. On this piece of paper is what looks to be a map of the island as well as some of the sea around it. You have some serious adventuring to do, now. You turn around, paying no attention to the small splash behind you.

**== Remember Lost Map**

You are now a blue-tailed creature who just remembered that you had forgotten probably the most valuable thing you have. Godammit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: == Be the Spider8itchy Mermaid**

Your name is Vriska Serket, and you're a cerulean-tailed mermaid currently on your way to one of your usual hunting trips. The creatures you hunted, the fishpeople living in the seas, were smaller than your species, the merpeople, and were therefore pretty easy to hunt. They barely even fight back or try to escape when you (or any mermaid) approach them. Plus, sometimes you just get bored and have nothing better to do, so why sit around doing nothing?

A grin appears on your face as you near the part of the ocean where they lived. You've done this so many times already, it was just a simple routine now.

You quickly spot one of the creatures nearby, swimming along happily, not aware that it would die within the next ten minutes. With your weapons in hand, you approach...

**[TIMESKIP]**

The hunt proved to be successful. You killed three of the fishpeople, and you figured that was enough for the day since you wanted to go see your friend John. Surely he was back from exploring by now! As you swim towards his home, looking at the aquatic scenery around you, you begin to think.

**== Think about the society**

The merpeople had a pretty complicated way of living. Everyone pretty much lived in these big cave-like structures in the sea, which were decorated and styled however they wanted. There was a wide variety of things one could do with their home, such as decorating it with pretty aquatic plants.

Merpeople had fish tails of different colors and some markings of their tail color on the upper part of their bodies, which were basically the same as a human's. All merpeople were more or less magical, and could sometimes have special abilities. They also had an aquatic vascular system type of thing which enabled them to breathe underwater. When in danger, threatened, or in the deep part of the ocean, attack/defense mode activated - a merperson became more sea-monster like and the markings on their bodies glowed.

An Empress ruled over them all, and she had the right to make executions. The said Empress lived in a very luxurious and big sea cave, almost like a palace. To become Empress, a merperson had to be female, related to the past Empress in some way, and old enough to take the job.

Lastly, all merpeople had the ability to morph their tails into legs, and be humans for a short time, and were able to change back into mermaids. But if a merperson spent _too_ much time as a human, they wouldn't be able to morph back anymore.

**== Snap out of it!**

You finally snap out of your thoughts about your society and look at the structure in front of you. Yes, you had finally reached John's cave, but he wasn't anywhere in sight. He should've been long done with his exploring stuff by now! What must've happened?

**A/N: Remember, reviews are always appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: == Be the Slightly Clumsy Merman**

Your name is Tavros Nitram and you've made a mistake.

"Oh, Tavros… Look what you've done."

"I-I'm so, so sorry, Aradia. I really am!" You begin to swim forward.

Aradia swims around in front of you, grabbing at all the broken pieces of the relic statue of the former Empress, you reach out to help, but with her free hand she slaps your hand away.

"Look, Tavros. I know it was an accident, but you can't keep breaking stuff when you come on digs with me! What if a guard swam by? He'd throw you in prison for defacing a monument! We need to get rid of all this broken coral."

You nod, "Uh, if you'd just let me take some instead of you holding it all in your one arm, well, uh…"

She immediately dumps an armload of coral into your hands.

**==Drop half of it**

Shoot, now you've done it. The coral sinks to the depths beneath you faster than Aradia lets out another frustrated sigh.

"Tavros, find somewhere on the shore where we can dump this mess. Perhaps somewhere relatively far, please?

You nod, hanging your head.

Aradia swims over to you, placing her hand on your shoulder, "Okay, not relatively far. Just give yourself legs and dance around on the shore until you find a good place to hide all the broken pieces, okay?"

**==Agree**

"Good! I'll be up there soon!" She smiles and swims down into the depths to retrieve the relic statue bits.

**==Swim off**

You swim through the clear water, watching all the fish seemingly flutter around in front of you before disappearing. The ocean seemed beautiful today, warm and bright and filled with peaches, teals, and generally happy tropical colors. The dark depths below you don't seem as menacing now that you're swimming away from the ruins you and Aradia had discovered about a week before. In fact, the darkness is beginning to disappear and you swim through the reef close by to the shore. You watch the neon fish flicker away from you timidly as you burst through their home, but quietly flock and return to you as you stop for a moment. You've always had a way with animals.

**==Ouch**

Your tail begins to bleed. Uncut coral is sharp!

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…"

You swim faster now, wanting to get to shore more than ever.

The pain is subsiding. Good. You slow down.

The reef ends and you are now looking down at the soft sand of the beach. Better get some legs now, before someone conveniently pops up and takes a picture or something.

**==Acquire legs**

Your rust-colored tail shifts into some nice tan legs. You've always preferred legs. You stand up, and start walking through the soft waves. The beach is relatively empty today.

You look down at your leg, which, is bleeding. Oh no, lots of blood, human blood. Humans are so fragile.

You reach down to touch your wound when you get hit head on by a young man on a surfboard.


	4. Chapter 4

****A/N: Hello, my readers! Please enjoy another chapter of One Extraordinary Summer Afternoon!****

****Chapter 4: == Swim****

****== Be the Blue Tailed Merman Who Just Lost his Map****

As you have previously mentioned, goddammit. You and Rose had been working on it for ages. She's going to cull you, you're sure of it. That map had on it the locations of most every important place near the island! Well, it's a good thing Rose has photographic memory. Otherwise you'd be screwed. You just wouldn't want such an important piece of paper falling into the wrong fins.

You follow Rose to her cave, muttering things to yourself as you do so. "Rose, wait," you stop, wanting to tell her about the map before you reached anyone else. "What is it, John?"

"I just, uh, might have lost the map."

"John! We've been working on it for ages! I knew I should have listened to Kanaya about letting you hold it. We'll craft another once we reach the cave, alright?"

You're relieved. She wasn't nearly as angry as you'd thought she would be. "Yeah… okay." You swim faster, smiling at the water rushing past your gills. Moments later, you and Rose have reached her cave, and she's tossing a rock in. She and you both know how much it irritates a certain bright pink-tailed mermaid, considering she wasn't drunk off sailor's liquor. As it turned out, Rose's twin was just that.

"Argh, Roxy! Can't you stay sober for two hours?" No, in fact she couldn't. She was sober less and less often now, and it was really starting to get to Rose. You can't say you blame her for being annoyed. "Rose, where the fuck have you been? You missed your daily serving of shitty fishy slop. You'll have to catch your own now." Rose shared her cave with the Strider clan. "Sorry, but I'd rather not inform you of my every whereabout. Thank you for the concern, Dave," Rose rolled her eyes.

Dave's your best bro, but his brother stayed mostly to himself. You haven't had more than a glimpse of him since you started exploring the area around the island with Rose. You're still not really sure if he exists, to be honest. But nevertheless, you try to be nice to everyone. You listen as Rose explains to Dave the day's adventures- as well as your unfortunate mishap, which he simply smirks at.

You have no idea of who's listening in.

****== Be the Orange Tailed Merman****

You do have a name, and it is Dirk Strider. Merpeople seem to forget that. As you listen to a monologue on Rose's "adventures," you find one thing that strikes you as odd. John says he looked back for his map, but it was gone, which meant that someone had taken it. You didn't think that anyone ever went to that smelly old cave- other than yourself and the occasional other merperson- and now you're curious. You swim to the bed of sea-sponges that you use to sleep on. (Nobody seems to get that the sponges have been dead for a while. You're not torturing animals, for gog's sake!)

After an hour of trying to get comfortable, you give up and rest your head down, drifting into a dreamless sleep.

****[TIMESKIP]****

You wake up at your usual hour, rubbing your eyes. No one else ever woke at sunrise, so you could leave without suspicion. You slip on triangular shades you had found in an underwater search and head out, careful not to disturb the water around anyone who was sleeping. The water's nicer in the mornings than it is in the afternoons.

The sun has fully risen by the time you reach the island, and as you go to enter the underwater passage to the pool where Egbert lost his map, you notice a shiny machine floating on top of the water. You carefully lift your head above the water to get a better glimpse. There's a human riding the shiny device towards the island. You duck behind a rock to not be seen, still keeping a close eye on the human. You're not sure if its hair is brown or black (a mix of both, perhaps?), and you can't see its eye color from where you hide. The human neatly parks the shiny machine, anchoring it and securing it to the makeshift dock with a rope.

He then started heading in the exact direction of the pool where Rose claimed John lost their map. Perhaps he was even the one who took it. Not wanting to risk being seen any longer, you duck under the water and swim towards the tunnel, letting yourself be enveloped in its darkness.

After a moment of swimming towards the light and a few avoided fishing nets, your head breaches the surface. You scan the surrounding area, listening and watching for any abnormal activity. Sure enough, there's the sound of what you take to be footsteps coming towards the water. You duck down, pressing your back and tail against the wall of the pool. Moments later, the human is leaning over the water, looking down. Sure enough, he has a small, folded sheet of paper in one of his hands. The map.

Since you hadn't been able to see the color of the human's eyes earlier, you decide to try again at once.

Emerald green. Quite a nice color, actually. Too bad the color's diluted by the water as well as the strange eyewear the human has on. Probably there only to help him see.

The human sits down, legs (weird, right?) dangling into the water. And this human has turned out to be clumsy as fuck, because he drops the map in the water. You snatch it.

Not your brightest idea. The human's eyes widen as they land on you, and you start swimming down, not caring that your markings would light the entire fucking passageway. You lose sight of the human, catching your breath at the same rock you'd his yourself behind earlier. As soon as you're sure that you're safe, you unfold the map, making sure to keep your tail fully submerged. You hear whistling, and look over the rock to see the human sit down on the beach's white sand, muttering things.

Until he catches sight of you. This human is too observant for its own good. "Aye! Anyone there?" You're sure he'd already seen you, so you move your head to the side of the rock, into the sight of the human. "Ah-ha! I knew somebody was there! Sorry to be a bother, but do you happen to have seen a map around here? I seem to have dropped one in the water earlier." The human speaks in an accent that you don't recognize. British, perhaps? You make sure to keep your tail fully hidden.

"Uh, no. Sorry dude."

"It's perfectly alright. What might you be doing on an island so early in the morning? I thought I was the only one bonkers enough to dare be here."

"Just exploring, I guess." It wasn't a lie. Probably the closest to the truth that this human was going to get.

"Me too! What's the most interesting thing you've found so far?"

"Probably the reefs, though the sharks were a bit weird at first." Why was it that it was so impossibly easy to talk with this human? All your life, you were taught- and forced to memorize- sayings and stories of merpeople terrorized and tortured by humans. Why wouldn't this one be any different?

"I haven't even thought of the water. To busy trying to discover the mysteries of the land, I guess. You'll have to show me one day. The name's Jake, by the way. Jake English."

"Dirk. Dirk Strider." Shit. You weren't planning on telling this Jake human anything.

The human- Jake- stands up, walking towards you. You immediately turn to swim away, but you remember that you can't, unless you want to risk being caught. Jake reaches his hand out. Thank gog. This isn't an attack; only a handshake. You shake the hand of the human, praying he won't notice your bright orange tail. "Pleasure. Want to go for a swim, Dirk Strider?" This human is a fucking genius, and you've fallen right into his trap.

You can't swim away, but you can't swim, and you most definitely can't just sit on this stupid rock all day. That's a mermaid thing. You roll up the already folded map, preparing to make a swim for it. As you dive backwards, the human's sudden exclamations are cut off by gasps as you swim deeper, tail propelling you downward. Once you're a good thirty feet below the surface, you stop, looking up. Jake is still standing there, and he's grinning. Why the fuck would anyone grin at a time like this?

You swim up, staying a good hundred feet away from the shore. "Why the fuck-?"

"You're a bloody mermaid!"

"I'm going to drown you if you call me that again. I'm not a fucking mermaid. Why doesn't anyone seem to get that?"

He ignores your threat, "Gadzooks! This is so exciting!"

"I'm not going to let you cull me, you know. But you stole a map that rightfully belongs to Egderp, so I had to come and retrieve it."

"So you do have the map?"

"Yeah no shit."

"Can I have it back?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"You stole it."

"Finders keepers. I didn't bloody steal it!"

"I'm not sure if you're telling me the truth."

"I swear I am!"

"Hmm..."

"What is it now?"

"Still want to see the coral reefs?"

"How is this relevant to the maps?"

"It's the first thing circled, dumbass. I thought you looked at the map."

"I did! Just... maybe not that part of it?"

"Drop the knife and swim out here then," yes, you noticed he was wearing a knife. You're many things, but "idiot" is not one of them. Jake rolls his eyes and throws the knife onto the sand far away from him. He then starts wading into the water. "It's not cold! Hurry the fuck up!"

"I'm trying! Try to have some patience! Us humans aren't fast!"

"Yeah, no kidding!"

The English human dives under the water, coming up for air when he reaches ten feet away from you. You decide that this is an acceptable distance. "Now, you have to swear on your legs that you won't tell anyone my kind exists, got it? If you refuse, you may never make it back to shore."

You're not bluffing. If you feel that this human will be a threat to the security of your kind, he'll have to go. No matter how weirdly attractive he may be.

"Blast. Fine. I'd rather live, thank you very much. Where's the reef you mentioned. I'd very much like to see it without the fear of being killed by a merman. But, if I might ask, may I have a look at your tail?"

"Uh... sure? Just don't touch it or cut it off or anything."

"But wouldn't cutting it off require touching it, as well as a blade?"

"Irrelevant. I guess you don't want to see my fabulous tail, then,"

"I do!"

"Then shut the fuck up and look under the water. You have five seconds."

The human ducks under the water, sucking in a breath before doing so. Oh right, humans need a bunch of pure air to breathe. Underdeveloped monkeys.

After his five seconds is over, the human's head pops above the water. "That's wicked!" He grins. It takes you a moment to realize that Jake's using the second definition of the word, rather than calling you yourself wicked as in evil. "What are those markings do?"

"That's for me to know, and you to find out."

"So long as I do find out eventually."

You duck under the water, scanning the water for those coral reefs. They've got to be around here somewhere. Once you catch sight of the colorful corals, you start swimming in that direction, stopping every twenty feet to give the Jake human a chance to catch up to you. Humans were actually really slow. You dive down, floating a bit above the reef, which was planted into the sand about twenty feet below the surface of the water.

Jake dives under the water as well, but stops short of you. He probably didn't want to risk drowning. Whatever the human tries to say is silenced by the bubbles coming out of its mouth. You move out of the way to let a shark swim by. "They won't eat you unless you try to cull them or something," you say, swimming up towards the waves. Humans needed air to breathe. You don't want to accidentally murder the first human you've ever met, especially if this human doesn't want to hack off your tail and sell it. After a moment, Jake emerges, straightening his spectacles on his face. Why he would ever have a need for glasses underwater, you don't know.

"Blimey," he says, sucking in a breath of his precious oxygen, "that's incredible. Where to explore next?"

You should have thought of that variable. That he'd want even more of the secrets that some in your race have died protecting, and that you're just tossing to this human for free. "There aren't many places that you can visit, due to your need to breathe, but I suppose we could just scout the shoreline; look for anything interesting. But I'm not allowing ou to use that unbelievably hideous metal thing within one human mile of any other living thing, alriyght?"

"Got it. Anything else?"

"Swim back to the island and get ready to do some land exploring."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: == Select new character**

****== Be the fuchsia tailed Mermaid****

Your name is Feferi Peixes and you are -EXCIT-ED! Well, you were most of the time anyway. You weren't doing anyhting productive or exciting at the moment, just lounging in your sea cave which was large and grand since you were the heiress to the throne, watching the sea creatures you captured and cared for as they frolicked about in their cages, their vibrant colored bodies shining, their gills flashing in the light. Some of them were able to swim in between the bars of their cages and escape, but that was okay.

When you become Empress of the seas, culling would be redefined to "caring for the unfit and infirm" rather than, well, killing. That would do the society of the merpeople _a lot_ of good, you were sure of it! And by caring for these aquatic animals, you were beginning to show it.

Sure, some people would disagree with your beliefs at first, as they were so used to other ways of life. But once you become their ruler, and they knew you meant business, they would listen.

Or, at least that was what the current Empress had told you. You didn't really doubt what she said about that topic; or many others for that matter. You admired her, even - most of the time.

She was a strong ruler, and you wanted your reign to be a bit like hers, only... _better_ . You had all of the plans for the throne. All of them.

When you take the throne, along with your redefining of culling, the underwater society would have less violence and killing. Everything would be more happy and peaceful. If someone needed care, they would get the help they needed. The corners of your mouth curved up into a smile as you thought of it.

But, that was a long time from now. Until then, you could fantasize you utopia.

****== Receive message****

Ah, yes. You turn to your somehow waterproof electronic handheld device. It appears you have gotten a message from someone. After looking at the screen for a few seconds, you realize that it's from Eridan.

* * *

CA: hey fef

* * *

You reply with one of your fishy greetings, and both of you proceed to chatter about random topics, as usual. After a few minutes of conversation you notice two shadowy sillhouettes at the edge of your room. As the pair of shapes come closer and into the light, you can see that they are both palace guards. What did they want this time?

"Sorry for intruding, but the Empress requests a visit from you."

* * *

**Just for clarification, since I didn't really mention it in Chapter 2, there are guards in the mer society who work for the Empress. Most of them roam the seas and look to see if anything is wrong; if they find something they have to report to her. Others guard the palace and take orders from the Empress herself.**


End file.
